by Dayton Ward
Skouris said, “You know Marco’s going to be up nights for the next month playing with his Ripple Effect theory and trying to figure out how Callahan or others like her fit in, along with this supposed balance.” Shaking her head, she reached up to rub her brow. “I think you might want to increase the coffee budget for the Theory Room.”
“I’ll bring that up at my meeting,” Jarvis said, rising from her perch. “Meanwhile, you two get back to the Collier case. We’re getting some new leads from that sketch, so it looks like you’re back in business.” She departed on that note, leaving Baldwin and Skouris to regard each other across their desks.
“What do you think?” Baldwin asked after a moment.
Rising from her chair, Skouris reached up to rub her temples. “I think I want breakfast. I owe Marco a bagel, anyway. I’ll start in on the sketch leads when I get back.”
“Deal,” Baldwin replied, smiling as she left. Bringing Marco breakfast? Maybe there was something more brewing between those two, after all.
Anyway…
Alone in the office, Baldwin found his thoughts returning to Lona Callahan. He was not disappointed that her murder had prevented him from once and for all solving the “Mystery of the Wraith,” as he had never truly considered it his case. What he did not like was the host of questions she had left behind, which now taunted him from across time. Only time itself, it seemed, would reveal their answers.
How did a returnee, possessing the motives that had driven her, factor into the purposes for which the 4400 had been sent from the future? If there were others like her, what agenda would they be following? What would their intentions and actions mean for the other returnees, to say nothing of everyone else?
For a brief moment, Baldwin heard the haunting words of the late Jordan Collier ringing in his ears. They seemed now to have acquired greater relevance, to say nothing of signaling larger portent than perhaps even Collier himself might have imagined.
The world will have to deal with us.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, we’d like to thank Margaret Clark, our editor at Pocket Books for several of our Star Trek projects, for inviting us to enter the world of The 4400. As we’re both fans of the show, it was an opportunity we seized with great relish. Coming in at the beginning of a new tie-in license carried with it challenges we don’t normally face with an established property like Star Trek. Margaret’s patience and guidance was invaluable as we all navigated relatively uncharted waters while producing one of the first entries for this new series of books.
Also deserving of many thanks is Paula Block, Supreme Goddess of All Things Licensing at CBS Consumer Products. She has always offered us great assistance on many of our past projects, and this time was no exception. In addition to keeping us honest with regard to Wet Work and making sure it correctly fits within the “mythology” of The 4400, she also provided suggestions and advice that absolutely improved our story. People in her position rarely get the recognition they deserve when it comes to collaborative projects like this, but Paula can rest assured that her efforts on our behalf are never forgotten.
Finally, we’d like to thank fans of The 4400 who reached out to us as they learned we were writing this novel. Their passion and enthusiasm for the series is contagious, and their anticipation as they wait for these new books to be published is heartwarming. Given the uncertain future of The 4400 on-screen, it’s exciting to know that fans are waiting for new stories, and we hope we’re able to meet their expectations.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DAYTON WARD is a software developer, having become a slave to Corporate America after spending eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. When asked, he’ll tell you that he joined the military soon after high school because he’d grown tired of people telling him what to do all the time. If you get the chance, be sure to ask him how well that worked out. In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, he is the author of the Star Trek novel In the Name of Honor and the science fiction novels The Last World War and The Genesis Protocol as well as short stories that have appeared in the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies, the Yard Dog Press collection Houston! We’ve Got Bubbas, DownInTheCellar.com, Kansas City Voices magazine and the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with his wife and daughters, Dayton is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Visit him on the web at http://www.daytonward.com.
For more than eight years, KEVIN DILMORE was a contributing writer to Star Trek Communicator, penning news stories and personality profiles for the bimonthly publication of the Official Star Trek Fan Club. On the storytelling side of things, his story “The Road to Edos” was published as part of the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits. With Dayton Ward, his work includes stories for the anthology Star Trek: Tales of the Dominion War, the Star Trek: The Next Generation novels A Time to Sow and A Time to Harvest, the Star Trek: Vanguard novel Summon the Thunder, the Star Trek: Enterprise novel Age of the Empress, and ten installments of the original e-book series Star Trek: S.C.E. and Star Trek: Corps of Engineers. A graduate of the University of Kansas, Kevin works as a senior writer for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Missouri.